New Jersey, USA
27 April 1891
Salem, Mass., April 27.
Jack the Ripper's American victim is still remembered in Salem. Her story is one of the
saddest ever penned. She was born in Liverpool, England in 1832. As a girl she was known
as Caroline Montgomery. She landed with her parents at New York and settled with them when
still a child in Brooklyn, N.Y., where she grew into a pretty girl. Then she met Captain
James Brown, of this city. He was but eighteen years old when he married her. Her husband
brought her to Salem.
After a happy married life of five years a little girl was born to them, and subsequently child, also a girl, and later a son.
Mrs. Brown had been married some ten years when she began to manifest an unfortunate desire for intoxicating liquor. In spite of all that husband and friends could say or do, her appetite increased so rapidly that her whole character was changed and debased.
Captain Brown entered the navy and served his country faithfully. While in command of the brig Elizabeth on the Gold Coast he was stricken down with African fever and died. By his will he left his wife a dollar and the balance of his estate to his two daughters.
Captain Brown had made a complete separation from his wife some years before. Nearly fifteen years ago she came back to Salem and entered the service of a retired sea captain as a domestic. At that time strong hopes were entertained of her redemption from a life of sin. At one time it was thought that she had rallied, but she suddenly fell.
Trenton Times
27 April 1891
The Famous Inspector Personally Nabs a Suspect
HE THINKS HE HAS THR RIPPER
New York, April 27.
The police are still turning heaven and earth to catch New York's Jack the Ripper. Arrests have been made wholesale on the case, and the whole police and detective force of the metropolis has literally devoted most of its time since the murder of the woman "Shakespeare", or Carrie Brown. Inspector Byrnes is evidently on his mettle, and has been personally directing the search for suspects. At 3 o'clock yesterday afternoon the Inspector boarded the Red "D" line steamer Philadelphia, lying at her pier in the East river, and personally arrested the second engineer who answers almost perfectly to the description of the murderer as given by Mary Miniter, the housekeeper of the East river hotel. Still another arrest has been made that tallies with the description of the supposed Jack the Ripper. Two park policemen found a man in City Hall park. He wore a sand colored coat and blue trousers, and, if anything, was scarcely shabby enough for the companion of the degraded victim at the slum lodging house that fatal night.
The Ripper is said to have worn a shabby blue coat. The man, whose name is said to be Henry Young, was examined at the Oak street station, confronted with "Frenchy", another suspect, and later taken to police headquarters. The newspaper men were meanwhile driven out of the station house, so great was the desire to keep quiet the actual bent of the police work and the facts learned thereby.
Inspector Byrnes says he knows who the murderer is. "Frenchy", one of the first suspects arrested, has a disreputable cousin, and it is this cousin whom the police believe is Jack the Ripper. The women among the prisoners had often been in the company of both of the men. They said that the two usually travelled together, but when one of them appeared alone he generally went about inquiring for the other, whom he designated as his cousin.
It appeared from the statements of the woman that the cousins had frequently gone with them to the East river hotel. On the night of the murder "Frenchy" occupied alone room 33, which was across the hall from the room where the murder was committed. When the inspector heard then women's story he sent again for Mamie (sic) Miniter, the women who let the couple into the hotel that night, and she recalled the fact that "frenchy" was in the house that night and she recognized the man who came in with the murdered as "Frenchy's" cousin.
The identification was further strengthened by comparisons between the descriptions which the prisoners had given of the cousin and the description which Mamie Miniter had previously given of the man who accompanied Carrie Brown. The prisoners said the cousin was a young man with a light complexion, brown mustache, a sharp nose, a derby hat and a cutaway coat. Mamie Minter had described Carrie Brown's companion as about thirty two years old, with a light complexion, brown mustache, sharp nose, a derby hat and a cutaway coat. From this concurrence and for other reasons, which he was not willing to give out in full, Inspector Byrnes was satisfied that the man who took Carrie Brown into room 31 that night and then killed and mutilated her was the cousin and companion in vice of the man he had locked up in a cell.
If the man indicated by Inspector Byrnes is really the fiend who butchered Carrie Brown it should not be long before he is under arrest. Reporters yesterday traced him to as late as Saturday, the second day after the murder, discovered where he had recently lived, what were his haunts and who were his companions. Unless he has got out of the country altogether the dragnet with which the detectives are industriously trawling the dives of this and neighboring cities should land him within forty eight hours.